Just Try
by HarvestedHeart
Summary: Just a little ShikaIno one-shot I came up with about the future, if and when that Uchiha comes back to Konoha with his wangst. Rated T for slight sexual content (VERY SLIGHT).


It's an angry waterfall of clothes, flailing and crashing down around him, one eventually sticking into his hair. Disgusted, he pulls the offensive thing off him, tossing it with its bubblegum stain unto the floor with a satisfying thud. Ugh….when did he ever buy a freaking pink shirt? Had he suddenly become mental? His mother, somewhere in Konoha, was sticking pins into his voodoo doll, he was sure of it. Women…why couldn't he just be gay? He wondered. Chouji would at least treat him decently….ugh. No. His mind protested and with an inner sigh, he reverted into his state of mind. Straight, and apparently, a coat rack for hideous monstrosities.

Oh. Now he remembered why he'd bought the hideous thing.

The darts of ice blue shot through him like twin arrows from the blonde's face, reminding him of where he is, and her silence (moments like these are precious, he thought at her speechlessness, gallows humor, he knew.) She liked that monstrosity on him, and so he'd bought it (well, after she threw a massive fit in the store yanking clothes off the racks and howling at assistants she assailed with wire hangers and he knew there was no other choice then to humor her lifelong dream of having him in a pink shirt so he bought it.)

She's not screaming, and he feels the tension in his chest cease, only for it rise up again with his new realization. Wait. That can't be good. She's always screaming. It's an Ino thing….like wearing purple and…..being loud-mouthed…..(wait…that ties in with the screaming. He may be an idiot savant, but women leave him a little mystified in more ways than one)

"Nothing to say?" Her eyes turn to him with cold malice and he knows, he knows he's done something, but what?

"No." His own voice sounds foreign, trying to pronounce something but not getting the tonality, the cadence correct. Somehow though, he hopes it will give her an opening. Maybe she can just get whatever it is off her chest (oh, Christ. Stop thinking about her chest, he reprimands himself. Not while she's mad….Women can probably tell this kind of thing...)

It shocks him, cuts through his frame of mind and tears it to shreds when hacking sounds rise out of her and her face crumples, crumples, into a mess of tears and skin, her eyes hidden in the folds. He awkwardly stretches his arm out towards her and feels the sharp sting as she swats it away, the tingling pain of the aftermath.

"Why would you do that?"She cries, screaming (finally) in the remnants of clothes and broken mirrors (he doesn't want to ask how that one happened) that was her bedroom.

"Why did you bring him back?!"

He remembers now and can feel his own cheeks begin to redden with a sort of maddening shame. To say, or not to say? So he goes for the basic response, the two word thing that maddened his mother so much.

"For you."

"I don't want him anymore!" She screams and hurls a floral-magenta pillow at his head. Too slow to duck, it beans him in the head. Ouch. How can she even sleep on sequins? Don't they hurt?

"What are you talking about?" He's confused. Why is she being so obstinate? He only did what she wanted, didn't he? What more can she ask for? Why does he always follow through with these silent demands anyhow?

"You said you loved him. You stayed up every night here crying and screaming into that…thing (here he gestures towards the offending sequin-knife-pillow). Your dad had to force the rest of us over here to just get you to even talk to anyone. You never talked on missions or anything. You didn't even look alive anymore."

"But…" she trailed off plaintively and then began to wail once more. "He's changed! He's changed!"

Somewhere in Nara Shikamaru, something small that was holding all his control snapped in that instant.

"HE'S THE SAME WAY HE ALWAYS WAS, INO!" He yells, loud enough for Inoichi outside to give a warning thump on the door before striding off to his next mission, caring father that he is, even in the call of a new job. Shikamaru resumes himself at a lower volume, his voice now tinged with cold anger, ice daggers.

"He never cared about you to begin with. How could he? You're an inelegant loudmouthed little pest who only fangirled around and bugged him. You made him irritated and all he ever wanted was to get you off his back."

She stares at him, mouth wide open but silent, tears falling into the crevices of her face and neck. She's pitiful. But he can't stop now that the floodgates are open.

"He even cared about Sakura more than he cared about you." He taunts, almost laughing in a sort of frenzied, rage-built happiness. "He might have even married her. She could keep the bloodline pure like he wanted to; help him build his mongrel clan back up. You are useless to him, Ino, because you're a clan-head's child, tainted and wasteful…. He'll never want you and he never did, don't you see?"

"Shika…" She's suddenly silent, her voice fragile and calm, breakable. Her fingers grip the headboard of her bed, tightening as she speaks.

"Why are you saying these….these….awful things?"

And here we are. The precipice, the lingering cliff that either begs fear and a hurried stride away, or elation, body spread out, flying down to whatever next awaits. This is the point where there can still be a walk away.

But he isn't doing that.

He subconsciously wonders why he still stands here. It's not as though he can make anything better for her. He thought he was, bringing the Uchiha back. The Uchiha. Everyone can't let go of him, the little bastard. Sakura's put on some sort of dead façade of strength, attempting to persuade herself that she's capable of killing him. No one's fooled, Shikamaru wants to blurt out. You still can't go against him. Naruto's become obsessed with bringing back his oldest friend (and incidentally, former and present enemy), to the point where they dragged the entire shinobi world into their conflict. He wonders why he's become so aggravated with the entire situation, especially now that's it's done, that Sasuke has been dragged back to Konoha to stand trial.

And Ino. That loudmouthed, troublesome childhood acquaintance, who had been so extroverted, such a braggart and so loud. Who drew more and more into herself when Sasuke left. Her medical skills stagnated and fell. She skipped out on missions. She didn't seem to care.

"Well?" Her frustrated voice calls him back to reality. That's right. She's furious (nothing new, he tells himself).

Livid, even. Her face is full of color, red cheeks high and tomato-bright against her pale skin, and her hair has escaped the tight ponytail it normally rests in, strands straggling and clinging to her skin in messy clumps. Those striking blue eyes are almost feverish-looking, glassy and shining like pieces of the sky where he watches clouds all the time off missions, the blue of the Konoha sky on in autumn.

She's messy. She's proud, a peacock preening purple feathers. She's loud, a force of nature like a hurricane or a tornado, whirling in circles pointlessly in no particular path.

She's perfect.

His mouth runs dry and he doesn't speak but moves forward, the fierce blue bursts of color becoming bigger and brighter as he nears. He ignores the rest of her for those eyes as he nears. To her credit, she doesn't back away, waiting too hard for an answer to back down now, some belated apology. He has none to give.

She struggles as his arms encircle her, nails digging into his arm, pointed and poised to draw blood, sharp little daggers. In response, he presses his lips to herown, tasting the cherry-flavor coating of hers.

She twists this way and that, but it's not enough. Even the laziest shinobi can be determined on occasion, Shikamaru finds.

Surprisingly enough, or perhaps as per expectation, they find their way to Ino's bed.

She's not struggling, but he pulls back from the steady embrace long enough to ask.

"You're okay with…."

She doesn't speak but pushes him down to meet her.

She sleeps, her body turned to the side, muffled snores escaping. He's still wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.

Ino x Sasuke, written in permanent marker near the wooden ceiling fan, obvious and boldly black on the white-washed ceiling, ominous and omnipresent,taking up his entire view of the room at one glance.

Kami, it's infuriating.

Pushing back the blankets gently, he steps out, hair untidy and dressed in gray boxers, towards the desk. Opening drawers, he finds the tools of his sabotage and takes them in hand.

Standing on a chair, he drags the white-out over and uncaps the paint tube.

He swirls the crimson ichor over the white, taking care for once in his life to be accurate, holding the brush with the skill of a novice painter. Good, considering he's never had much of an interest in art.

Almost done, he thinks with satisfaction, his hands working at the ceiling.

His handiwork is beautiful, or at least, good enough for something so troublesome. Funny. At the time he must have been working on his fury's energy, since now the action itself has revealed its true nature: an annoying task. Still, what's done is done, and he can't help taking in a sort of satisfaction glancing at his completed work.

Sasuke no longer exists on the wall. With white-out and paint, a new name has eclipsed the Uchiha.

Ino x _Shikamaru_

He smiles, a nasty grimace spreading over his face as he crawls back into the bed, moving closer to the still-sleeping Ino.

His lips to her ear, he whispers what he'll never say to her while she's awake.

"Just try to get rid of me now."


End file.
